As is generally well known, methods of marketing a product in a retail environment, particularly, such as a supermarket employ stations which are positioned in strategic locations for distributing product samples to consumers to taste. The products vary from beverages to cheeses and meats and some of these products are heated or cooked at the station.
Commonly, product marketing information, such as a brochure, is offered to consumers for additional description about the product being tasted. Consumers may also receive a promotional coupon offering financial incentives for buying the product. Presently, such stations are operated by personnel that are hired by a retail establishment, by a distributor or by a marketing agency that is responsible for promoting the product.
There are several disadvantages with the currently employed method for marketing food and beverage products.
One disadvantage is that products that are being heated or cooked are often placed on a serving tray and may remain there for a duration of time which is sufficient to reduce the internal temperature of the product, thus negating the effects of heating or cooking and preventing the consumer tasting the product at its optimal internal temperature recommended for consumption. The product left on the tray for longer than the expected time period is exposed to undesirable bacteria present in the environment or carried by the consumer.
Another disadvantage is that the present methods do not enable the manufacture or the marketing agency to know how many consumers tasted the product or which product the consumer tasted if the station serves more than one distinct product. Some consumers are known to take advantage of free product sample offerings by returning to the station and taking samples multiple times.
The present methods further prevent the manufacturer, distributor, retailer or marketing agency to effectively cross-market product combinations. For example, the consumer that is tasting an ice cream product in the ice cream section may not be aware of cookie sampling in the bakery section, which is typically situated at a different end of the building, if such consumer does not have need to purchase any bakery items.
Additionally, the manufacturer, distributor, retailer or marketing agency is unable to capture product preference data or personal data of each individual consumer sampling a particular product. The presently used store cards are only presented by the consumer at the time of paying for the purchases that may not contain the product or products that such consumer tasted previously at one or more sampling stations. Therefore, it is unknown whether the consumer purchased the marketed product due to earlier tasting of its sample or due to previously established product preference and recognition.